Founder Profile
Rich Barton
Last reviewed: October 2026 · By Swet Parvadiya
Who is Rich Barton?
Rich Barton is a founder of Expedia Group, Inc., which was founded in 1996 with Lloyd Frink. Rich Barton is a founder of Zillow Group, Inc., which was founded in 2006 with Lloyd Frink.
- Companies founded
- Expedia Group, Inc. and Zillow Group, Inc.
- Founded
- 1996
- Co-founders
- Lloyd Frink
Background
Barton founded Expedia as a unit of Microsoft in the 1990s and ran it as CEO after it was spun out. He later co-founded Glassdoor.
Founding Story
Rich Barton founded Expedia in 1996 entirely inside Microsoft as an internal project. Recognizing that the internet would completely destroy traditional travel agents, he convinced Bill Gates to fund a platform that gave consumers direct access to airline reservation systems. He successfully spun the company out of Microsoft in 1999, taking it public. He later used this exact same playbook ('power to the consumer via data') to found Zillow and Glassdoor.
Rich Barton was born in 1967. Education: Stanford University.
Richard Barton was born on June 2, 1967. He went on to co-found Zillow in 2006, where he has twice been chief executive, and the jobs site Glassdoor. He also founded the travel photo-sharing app Trover, which Expedia bought in 2016.